Innehållsförteckning för #644 från AppleMagazine

In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day. Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning. The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes. “Students used to have an understanding that you aren’t supposed to be on your phone in…

Trade associations representing hundreds of companies that do business in Virginia have come out swinging against a proposal to expand the state sales tax to cover digital goods, something Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed and Democrats endorsed in their budget legislation. Both chambers of the legislature included the new sales tax on purchases like streaming subscriptions, cloud storage and online downloads in the two-year budget plans they passed last week. The Senate went beyond the House of Delegates in also applying it to business-to-business transactions. In a letter sent to lawmakers beginning Tuesday, the Northern Virginia Technology Council and other business-focused lobbying and trade organizations said the General Assembly should reject the proposed “tech tax,” which budget documents from both chambers show is estimated to generate over $1 billion in…

With presidential primaries underway across the U.S., popular chatbots are generating false and misleading information that threatens to disenfranchise voters, according to a report published this week based on the findings of artificial intelligence experts and a bipartisan group of election officials. Fifteen states and one territory will hold both Democratic and Republican presidential nominating contests next week on Super Tuesday, and millions of people already are turning to artificial intelligence -powered chatbots for basic information, including about how their voting process works. Trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini are ready with AI-generated answers, but prone to suggesting voters head to polling places that don’t exist or inventing illogical responses based on rehashed, dated information, the report found. “The chatbots…

Francine Spang-Willis wishes the landscape of the Crazy Mountains near Livingston, Montana, could speak for itself. But absent that, the oral historian will launch a new project talking to people with a connection to the land. Spang-Willis is one of a dozen new fellows announced this week by the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’ philanthropy organization. In partnership with the nonprofit Park County Environmental Council, Spang-Willis will spend the next year interviewing people with unique and deep perspectives on the area in hopes of generating strategies to steward the Crazy Mountains. She said the land has many stakeholders — from ranchers who have been there for five generations to members of the Crow Nation who go there for “some type of fasting or vision quest” to hunters and recreationists. “How…

SNATCH GAME RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE YEARS THE WALKING DEAD: THE ONES WHO LIVE I’M NOT A CRIER WHERE IS WENDY WILLIAMS? FEBRUARY 24, 2024 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE - SHANE GILLIS I LOVE BEING FAMOUS WHERE IS WENDY WILLIAMS? I AM GORGEOUS WHERE IS WENDY WILLIAMS? SNOOKI NIGHT JERSEY SHORE: FAMILY VACATION I REALLY WANT TO BE BACK ON TELEVISION WHERE IS WENDY WILLIAMS? SOIREES AND SEPARATIONS THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS DECLARATION OF CODEPENDENCE SUMMER HOUSE…

Germany plans to enable underground carbon storage at offshore sites, pushing ahead with a much-discussed technology in an acknowledgement that time is running out to combat climate change, the country’s vice chancellor said this week. Europe’s biggest economy is making good progress with expanding renewable energy sources and usage, but a solution is needed for the carbon dioxide emitted by some sectors such as the cement industry that are “hard to abate,” said Robert Habeck, who is also the economy and climate minister. Germany, which is home to many energy-intensive industries, aims to cut its emissions to “net zero” by 2045. Habeck’s proposed “carbon management strategy,” which still needs to be turned into detailed legislation, foresees enabling the transport of carbon dioxide and its storage under the sea in Germany’s…

In a move that has surprised industry watchers and stakeholders alike, Apple Inc. has officially pulled the plug on its electric vehicle initiative, known as Project Titan, after more than a decade of speculation, investment, and development. This decision marks a significant retreat from what was once considered a groundbreaking venture into the automotive sector by the tech giant. The closure of Project Titan was communicated internally by Apple’s COO Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, who had been at the helm of the project since 2021. According to sources, this decision was the culmination of intense deliberations among Apple’s top executives, including CEO Tim Cook, who had been under considerable pressure from shareholders to make a definitive call on the project’s viability. The initiative had reportedly reached a critical “make-or-break…

Apple has entered the game with the launch of a custom Sports app. Available for free on iOS, Apple Sports is a new dynamic hub designed to cater to the needs of sports fans, offering real-time scores, comprehensive stats, and a plethora of long-awaited features. DESIGNED FOR SPORTS LOVERS Launching a custom Apple Sports app is a significant step towards enhancing how sports are followed, making it easier, faster, and more personalized than ever before. The new iOS app, which will likely make its way to the Apple Watch and to macOS in future updates, is not just another addition to its suite but a tailored experience for sports enthusiasts. Available across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom signifies Apple’s commitment to reaching a global audience, providing access…

President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at better protecting Americans’ personal data on everything from biometrics and health records to finances and geolocation from foreign adversaries like China and Russia. The attorney general and other federal agencies are to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to what the White House calls “countries of concern,” while erecting safeguards around other activities that can give those countries access to people’s sensitive data. The goal is to do so without limiting legitimate commerce around data, senior Biden administration officials said on a call with reporters. Biden’s move targets commercial data brokers, the sometimes shadowy companies that traffic in personal data and that officials say may sell information to foreign adversaries or U.S. entities controlled by those countries. Most eventual…

Price increases for cars and trucks in the United States, which helped fuel inflation for nearly three years, are slowing and in some cases falling, helping cool overall inflation and giving frustrated Americans more hope of finding an affordable vehicle. Behind the price slowdown is a vastly expanded number of vehicles on dealer lots after years of severe shortages. With more autos available, the pressures that had sent prices surging have eased. At the end of January, American dealers had 2.61 million new cars, trucks and SUVs on their lots, according to Cox Automotive. By contrast, the supply a year ago was just 1.74 million. Though inventories of new autos are still well below the roughly 4 million level that prevailed before the pandemic, analysts and dealers say the rising…

Leap year. It’s a delight for the calendar and math nerds among us. So how did it all begin and why? Have a look at some of the numbers, history and lore behind the (not quite) every four year phenom that adds a 29th day to February. BY THE NUMBERS The math is mind-boggling in a layperson sort of way and down to fractions of days and minutes. There’s even a leap second occasionally, but there’s no hullabaloo when that happens. The thing to know is that leap year exists, in large part, to keep the months in sync with annual events, including equinoxes and solstices, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. It’s a correction to counter the fact that Earth’s orbit isn’t precisely…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed cooperation on extended reality devices with LG Electronics executives on Wednesday as part of his visit to South Korea that highlights Meta’s ambitions in artificial intelligence. South Korea is the second leg of Zuckerberg’s three-nation Asian tour that observers say is meant to discuss partnerships with tech powerhouses and forge good relations with business and government leaders in the region. He already visited Japan and will travel to India later this week. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg met LG Electronics CEO William Cho for two hours to talk about business strategies for extended reality — known as XR — device development, LG said in a statement. While experiencing Meta’s latest virtual-reality headset, the Quest 3, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Cho “expressed a keen interest in Meta’s…

Google apologized for its faulty rollout of a new artificial intelligence image-generator, acknowledging that in some cases the tool would “overcompensate” in seeking a diverse range of people even when such a range didn’t make sense. The partial explanation for why its images put people of color in historical settings where they wouldn’t normally be found came a day after Google said it was temporarily stopping its Gemini chatbot from generating any images with people in them. That was in response to a social media outcry from some users claiming the tool had an anti-white bias in the way it generated a racially diverse set of images in response to written prompts. “It’s clear that this feature missed the mark,” said a blog post from Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice…

Sony will cut about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division, or about 8% of its global workforce, becoming the latest company in the technology and gaming sector to announce layoffs. Sony cited changes in the industry as a reason for the restructuring. “The industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead,” Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said in a blog post this week. “We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future technology in gaming, so we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community.” The layoffs this week arrive one month after Microsoft said it would cut nearly…

‘DUNE: PART TWO’ SUSTAINS THE DYSTOPIAN DREAM OF ‘PART ONE’ Three firm thumps into the Arrakis sand is all you need to summon a sandworm in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.” It’s almost as easy as hailing a cab or calling for the check. The big buggers can’t resist the sound, which is a little like how I feel taking in all the vibrations of Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science-fiction novel. Whispers, incantations and guttural sounds buzz throughout “Part Two,” a hissing hulk of a sequel that fluctuates between ominous silences and thunderous booms. The first “Dune,” released in 2021 when movie theaters were still humbled by the pandemic, tackled just the first half of Herbert’s opus, saving the second half for the sequel. That split can be…

Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. opened last weekend in an official ceremony its first semiconductor plant in Japan as part of its ongoing global expansion. “We are deeply grateful for the seamless support provided by you at every step,”TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said after thanking the Japanese government, local community and business partners, including electronic giant Sony and auto-parts maker Denso. The company’s founder Morris Chang, was also present. This comes as Japan is trying to regain its presence in the chip production industry. The Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, or JASM, is set to be up and running later this year. TSMC also announced plans for a second plant in Japan earlier this month, with production expected to start in about three years. Private sector investment totals $20 billion…